‘ism’ or ‘ness’

Feminism is back in – or perhaps its me hearing the word a lot these days…  I’ve never been able to declare myself as one, despite the empowerment and my deepest respect for the legacy of that particular ‘ism’. I am very particular about names, mainly because I don’t want to contend with a whole bunch of other things to conform or live up to. For example it’s very important that I keep my surname – not that it can be traced very far (I have no idea what happened to slave one even) but it’s my property, I’ve grown into it and defined it. And of course this continual negotiation of ‘Black’ as a cultural/political identity, which becomes (one could argue) more amorphous by the decade.  Interestingly I went along to a talk at the Arthouse by a young artist who has a plethora of cultural influences and is admittedly a Lewisham bod. 

Duval Timothy Mahsiwel at Lewisham Arthouse

Now for me as young adult I tried to assume some kind of belonging to a generic idea of Black culture and expanding the notion of Britishness. These days in the ‘urban’ neigbourhoods kids are finding ties with each other through things like postcodes.  Now I have to admit dismissing this trend as a nonsense, mainly because a lot of the information mediated is usually negative, associated with violent confrontations etc… but this artist made a really intelligent show appropriating Lewisham as a brand and identity playfully, showing a confidence and ownership by reconfiguring Lewisham, demonstrating a fluidity of the meaning of words and even if you don’t understand them what they could imply...

I dunno Lewishamness?

All in a good cause

Knight of Faith

It’s inevitable, dare I say it, doubting ones own authenticity - feeling like a series of reflections of the environment. I could be mistaken but I read somewhere that Barnett Newton cut himself off critically and socially for a spell in a bid to escape it. Anyways I found myself also heading back towards the existentialist territory.  It is always rather attractive at first and then you don’t necessarily find answers you want, but more answers and references to a load of other philosophers you haven’t read. I came across Adorno’s The jargon of Authenticity – it was just and inkling really - kinda to do with the book project but probably more to do with the condition mentioned above.

Reading through the introduction at some point he began refuting Kierkegaard’s idea of ‘radicalinward love’, Adorno found this love uncannily similar to the spiritual love of Christianity. The book attempted to rattle a kind of pseudo mysticism he identified in German existentialist philosophy and its community. Adorno critiqued the ideal of the autonomous intellect, and reckoned that retreating inwards (to exist serenely) was the life of a dominated individual. For him existence unaffected by the ‘concrete’ world and its dictates was impossible.

He was obviously talking on a grand political scale, but (as he might admit himself) you can attempt to apply these ideas/theories to anything. So what does that say of the ‘creative subject’ who struggles to find assurances about what they put in the world? What makes someone an artist? Is there a set of criteria and would we all be in agreement upon what they are? Probably not, which is why so many factions exist so people can agree to agree – implicit, complicit, whatever you want to call it…

But in cutting that hairball - I think I had submitted to making something badly, but keeping that conviction and hope in arriving somewhere through the uncertainty. Isn’t that what Kierkegaard would call a ‘Knight of Faith’? We’ve all become accustomed to the idea of getting closer to yourself or a higher being through ritual. Considering Adorno’s critique, perhaps the existentialists were just acknowledging the need for transcendence, no matter show rational or irrational it is.

It just is…

Layers

I found myself at the British Library this week, loving and hating the opportunity I had to track down virtually any book that’s been printed. I went there hoping that I could find some answers to my text problem. A problem – I haven’t really got to the bottom of really. Sometimes the idea gets a bit too big, too much to handle and although one wants to have layers of meaning and connotations. The timing of all these layers is critical to the momentum of the thing, making nods to all the things your artwork could be, can leave you with a mess on your hands. So initially the project was a very simple idea of making an equivalent to the relic. Then the process of making the thing itself started to take on a sort of ritual. At the same time I thought the object aptly stood in for Maurice in terms of the ‘suffering’ endured. 

Then there’s the question of faith…

Some one asked me recently if I would invoke him, try and call on him for assistance. I can’t say that I even thought about it.  I don’t believe in deities in that way, and as it’s becoming more and more doubtful that he ever existed, I think the interest is more about him as a cultural figure, which fuelled imaginations of many artists. So this book in the British Library was dedicated to cataloguing surviving black Maurice’s. The ‘Golden legend’, which has several versions, is but a small portion of the text. Apart from being a catalogue of 300 objects, it also contextualizes how these objects came about – invevitably linked to the political wrangling’s of the time. Interestingly most of the examples came from Germany, which at around 1500 was pretty much most of the Holy Roman Empire.

Its like the project is going in two directions… In one way a book project could be an extension of that catalogue dealing with Maurice as an object rather then a person or metaphysical figure.  On the other it’s an interpretation of the Hagiography. I haven’t made up my mind yet and I don’t seem in a hurry to do so just yet…